


Tracing Time

by Leonawriter



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Off-screen Character Death, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-10
Updated: 2013-06-19
Packaged: 2017-12-08 02:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/755991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leonawriter/pseuds/Leonawriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something went wrong in the past, big enough to make someone powerful enough want to go back, and change anything he could to make it right this time around.  One thing's for sure; Uchiha Sasuke is a right handful to deal with, even for his older self...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was started quite a while back, long before many of the recent manga chapters, and the plot I came up with is one I wouldn't mind sticking to - so you could call this AU even before the time travel element sets in.
> 
> The main reason it's up here is because I've thought of continuing this several times, and had to scroll through my blog or files to find the bits and pieces... I'd prefer to have it all in one place, to be honest!

So… this was the past, then.

Uchiha Sasuke looked around him, and rolled his eyes.   _Damn, and at such a time, too, I-_

He didn’t have the chance to finish his thought, as in that very moment there appeared several dozen flares of chakra from all directions, and several more directly in his line of sight, kunai aimed at his head, his heart, anything that would cause major damage.

…He really should have seen this coming.

“Uchiha Itachi, you are under arrest.  Do not move.  If you do, then the ANBU have orders to kill.”

But at the same time, he didn’t think that confusing him with his long-dead - in his time, at least - brother was at all forgivable.

........

The trip to the Hokage's office passed about as eventfully as Sasuke had imagined it would - not very, if one ignored the looks, the stares, the ANBU making occasional death threats and the constant of everyone making assumptions about who he was.

Then he was left in front of the doors, while he attempted to put on an air of complete and utter indifference to the situation he was in.

From what he knew, the Hokage - and that would be old man Sarutobi, now, wouldn't it - could well be watching him for his reactions this very moment.  Well, regardless of his intentions, Sasuke wasn't going to give the old man the pleasure.

When the door was finally opened, he had become quite impatient.

"Ah, Sasuke-kun!  I-"

Sasuke barged in, slamming the door behind him and cutting off the Hokage mid-sentence in a way that reminded Sarutobi far more of the boisterous Naruto than the stoic Sasuke. 

"It's taken you long enough, old man!  How long does it  _normally_  take to see someone?  I somehow doubt-"

Sasuke stopped, only now realising something rather important.  Slowly, he turned to properly face the Hokage, who was still smiling, amused, from behind his desk.  He blinked owlishly.

"You called me by my name.  None of the others did.  They all thought I was..."

"...Your brother, yes."  The smile faded, turning into a sympathetic frown.  "I can imagine that must be hard for you."

Sasuke's fists clenched, his face turning away from the Hokage as his expression darkened.  "You have no idea.  I don't understand - how could they not see what's in front of their faces?  We  _aren't_ that alike.  And our chakra-!"

"People often choose not to see what is right in front of their faces, simply because it is something that their minds cannot cope with.  They choose to ignore it, rather than accept it into their world views... and I'm sure you have to admit.  Time travel of any kind is a rather large thing to ask anyone to accept into their idea of how the world works."

Sasuke snorted.  The man spoke sense, but still.

"That doesn't make it something I'll accept.  If nothing else, if word got out to the surrounding villages that Konoha was holding Uchiha Itachi, who knows what kind of effect it would have?"

The Third grunted, with a brief nod.  It certainly made sense, and no matter what hidden motives this older Sasuke might have, what he had just said would potentially ensure the safety of Konoha.  He would, it seemed, be having to have a word with some of the higher-ranked ninja in the village.  Hopefully, the rest would follow by their example.


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn't as though he hadn't known what to expect.  Even if he'd never been personally taken in during all of his time as a missing nin, he knew the process.

Time in interrogation.

Suspicion.

Probation - if you were lucky.

Sasuke had left his own time in a hurry, and arrived in this one - his past, another dimension where everything had the potential to go as dangerously wrong as it had in his time - with little to no preparation whatsoever.

For one thing, he'd lost his forehead protector in the fight with Naruto, and never bothered to go back and pick it up, or ask someone to find it for him.

Not that it likely would have helped.  The way it'd been scratched... no.  It would have raised too many suspicions.  Especially given that Akatsuki were still very much active.

Fortunately for him, however, the ANBU who had first taken him to the Sandaime quickly realised their mistake upon seeing him and sensing his chakra for a second time.  Unfortunately, however... this didn't mean that he was exempt from being questioned.

_Was he actually Uchiha Sasuke, and not just someone else in a henge?_

He dared them to break the non-existent genjutsu.  Some short time later, they were all satisfied that at least it wasn't an illusion.

_Could he prove it?_

He told them insignificant things that he remembered from his childhood.  Nothing that would give away just how much he did know, and how much would actually be a danger.

_How, then, did he get from the future to the past?_

Not by any way they could replicate.  And that was all he told them on that particular matter; the Kyuubi had done the brunt of the work, for whatever reason the fox had, and with that in mind it truly  _would_  be impossible for any normal shinobi to recreate.

_What happened to make him do it?_

There... he paused.  What to say?  The truth-

_It wasn't that he'd been too good, or that Naruto simply not good enough, or even that the blond had been distracted during the fight.  Sasuke saw the smile on the other ninja's face, and knew that none of it was right, and none of it was real any more, only the fact that the only one who'd tried so hard to understand him, no matter how hard he'd pushed away, was dead, dying, going in his arms and the battle wasn't supposed to end like this, with Sakura screaming, and this time there wasn't any Kakashi to keep her away, only a flaming paw of red-hot chakra that batted her into the side of the valley as Sasuke realised only too late that this wasn't what he'd wanted-_

No.  Not the truth, then.  That something had gone wrong.  That it had involved the Kyuubi, and many people dying.  He could tell that they still did not quite believe him, but that was fine.  He would have thought less of them if it had been that easy.


	3. Chapter 3

If Sasuke knew who had made his identity public knowledge, then he would have killed them by now.  Or... perhaps not  _killed_ , since he was supposed to be supporting the leaf - apparently he was on probation, of sorts, they didn't have a precedent for this sort of thing, so they were trying to pretend they weren't simply making it up as they went along - but certainly embarrass and humiliate.

To be sure it would have been hard to forego the Uchiha fan on his back if he had chosen to become anonymous, and harder still to avoid using the sharingan, but if that would have been the price to pay in exchange for not being stared at and the talk of Konoha?  He would have chosen it.

Instead, his patience was being tested.

So far today, a week after he'd been officially instated as a probationary chuunin-rank ninja until they felt that they could fully trust him (and wasn't that ironic, that even in his own time he'd never been anything more than a genin, but here, where they didn't even know him and what he was capable of, what he'd  _done_ -), well.  He'd been stared at, yes, mostly because of how there were supposed to be only two Uchiha left in the world, and one of those was a mass-murderer and kinslayer-

_"I'm sorry, Sasuke.  There's not going to be a next time, any more..."_

-and the other, himself, or rather for these people, his younger self.  Sasuke himself was an outsider to them in many ways, a fount of forbidden information that they could never know.  A curiosity for those who wondered how anyone could ever have the chakra and the understanding of the right jutsu to be able to travel through time.  An Uchiha who was of age to repopulate the clan.

It was the last that made him twitch the most, and that made the ghost of Naruto in the back of his mind snicker with unrepressed glee at his discomfort.


	4. Chapter 4

One of the first things he'd done as soon as he'd been given any agency in his own actions was to ask what Team Seven were currently doing.

Away, came the answer.  On a mission.  They should be back soon.  Not to worry.  You'll be able to see your younger self then, right?  And your teamates?

He wasn't sure whether he was more relieved or concerned.  On a mission... they hadn't had that many missions back in the days before the Chuunin exams that had taken the four of them out of the village for such a long time.  In fact, there was only one that he recalled, and by the time it had ended he himself had nearly died and had activated his first degree of sharingan, Naruto had gone Kyuubi on them all at seeing his nearly lifeless body (stupid idiot). 

So, yes, concern.  By landing in the past, he could have changed events.  Anything could turn out differently to how he remembered it.  Although at least the village would have gotten word if something serious... more serious than he remembered... had occurred.

But at the same time he dreaded seeing himself.  Seeing Naruto, just as much.

One was a ghost of who he was now, who would look at him and see a possible future path, a way of power that he could take.  His younger self was naive, yes, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to take an opportunity when it was presented to him on a silver platter.  Otherwise he wouldn't even be here in the first place.

The other was a ghost in a far more specific sense, and he... wasn't sure just how he was going to deal with that.  It was _Naruto_.  Brash, loud-mouthed, rude and annoying Naruto, who was still the brat who hadn't yet been betrayed.

More often than he liked, Sasuke found himself, when not trying to forget his worries in his kata and the practice of his jutsu, sitting atop the Hokage monument, brooding out of mind and out of sight of the village.

He was up there when they returned, battered but still more or less in one piece.

He steepled his fingers under his chin, leaning forwards, unafraid of the height that he would fall from if he were to lose his footing or balance.

_"Hey, Saskuke-teme!  That's you!  Haha!  You look just as stuck up as you ever did, too!"_

"Hn."

_"Do I really look like that from this angle?  What!?  It's been ages since I was that age!"_

He closed his eyes, screwing them shut tight in the hope that the blather would disappear with his vision.  There was, at least, quiet, but...

The moment he opened his eyes again, there was the grinning, see-through visage of the older, now dead Naruto.

_"Still here, dumbass!"_

He could still feel the blood on his hands.  The fire, as the Kyuubi's chakra helped form the jutsu.  Maybe that was even how Naruto was still able to stick around, even if it was only in his mind; the energies used had to have come from somewhere, after all.

He dragged a hand over his face, and when he could see again the monument was clear aside from the birds.  Naruto, his younger self, Sakura, Kakashi... they had all disappeared into the village to give their report.  Doubtless they'd be hearing about his presence already from those in the village who'd seen him around, or even the Hokage himself.

Resigning himself to the fate he'd given himself when he'd decided that this would be better than the future he and the others would have had otherwise, he straightened up, dusted himself off, and made his way back down to face the music.

...

AN: You could say that part of this was inspired/based on an old art I'd done that was supposed to tie into the story as a whole.  [Here it is](http://leonawriter.tumblr.com/post/15862460229).


End file.
